


The Greatest Show

by tehtarik



Series: SpiritAssassin Week 2017 [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: AU, M/M, SpiritAssassin Week, SpiritAssassin Week 2017, baze is a circus performer called blaze, circus AU, space circus AU, spiritassassin, this is not what i wanted to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 06:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehtarik/pseuds/tehtarik
Summary: “And now!” a voice booms from the arena. It’s Ringmaster, in his usual brilliant scarlet overcoat with a trailing bridal train and an equally scarlet top hat. He cracks his whip and sparks fly, rising in a hissing cloud to temporarily engulf him, and the audience cheers. “The star of our show, the one and only High Voltage Acrobat in the entirety of the universe, ‘Blaze’ Malbus!”Baze & Chirrut as space circus performers.Prompt 2: AU





	The Greatest Show

**Author's Note:**

> **For SpiritAssassin Week 2017. Day 2  
> **   
>  **Prompt is: AU**

The visitors to the _Circus Kyberus_ arrive long before the show starts. Their ships rumble into the _Circus’s_ vast docking port, attendants waving fluorescent batons at the guests and directing them along the prismatic passageways, to the central auditorium at the heart of the massive starship.

Come and catch the Greatest Show in Space: that’s what they call the _Circus Kyberus_ , the best galactic entertainment there is - _witness daredevil acts and simply stellar performances_ , excuse the pun (poor advertising from Ringmaster Chirrut Imwe).

But the lights and the glam and the death-defying acts have all but lost their novelty for the star of the show: the High Voltage Acrobat, Baze ‘Blaze’ Malbus.

He’s been here fifteen years; he’s seen the lot; he knows the tricks even though the other circus folk guard their secrets jealously. But after awhile, one trick is the same as the next, anyway. He’s seen the supersonic chariots, the strong man(droid) performances, the laser pyrotechnics, the electrothaumaturges, the rocket booster trapeze, the trained troupes of giant sklatha salamanders, extinct everywhere else in all the charted systems of the universe, except here in this galactic freakshow.

God, if there’s such a being at all, knows why he even stays. Actually, God just might be the biggest, most grandiose circus act of all.

“And now!” a voice booms from the arena. It’s Ringmaster, in his usual brilliant scarlet overcoat with a trailing bridal train and an equally scarlet top hat. He cracks his whip and sparks fly, rising in a hissing cloud to temporarily engulf him, and the audience cheers. “The star of our show, the one and only High Voltage Acrobat in the entirety of the universe, _‘Blaze’ Malbus_!”

The crowd howls and stamps.

The cube-shaped electrical grid that had been assembled quietly during intermission now lights up. Brilliant blinding blue. The crystal shaped spotlights swerve around to direct the full intensity of their beams upon the vast and non-symmetrical lattice, which crackles with electricity. Techno music pounds from hidden speakers, bass rhythms amplified by the arena’s subwoofer network, so it feels like the whole starship is pulsing, a gigantic metallic heart in the vacuum of space.

Baze mounts the platform at the top. Notes the positions of the insulated handholds, the mid-air micro-coordinates where he’ll have to twist his body and avoid the wavy parallel rails. Sets a rhythm deep within his body.

But even this is dull for him. Fifteen years of this crap. He’s old. He ought to retire. Maybe go to this faraway idyll called Earth, the native world of coffee and adorable alien feline creatures known as cats.

He glances down, way down past the bottom transmission bars to where Ringmaster is standing, fire-whip still cracking up a frenzy. If he’s not careful, he’s going to set himself on fire again. And then Baze will have to stop his act and douse him with a canister of coolant. Not for the first time either.

As if sensing Baze looking down at him, Ringmaster turns his face upwards. White-blue unseeing eyes, their colour and their blindness magnified by optic irradiator implants, catch his stare. Ringmaster smiles a lazy toothed smile at him. Baze can see the indents of his dimples from high up here.

For a moment, he pauses, disoriented by the recent memory of Ringmaster in his arms, of that smug smile wiped off his face, replaced by the openness of his mouth, slack, moaning, spit curling out of the corner of his lips as Baze fucked him against the walls of his own quarters.

No, he has to concentrate. Or he’ll fry himself pretty in this grid.

He closes his eyes, tries to find that point of calm deep within.

Then he leaps off the platform, calculating all the way, every nano-second of his freefall. Fizzing strings of electricity leap off the bars and try to attach themselves to his skintight conductive suit, try to connect into the circuit of his own flesh and blood, and the electrical impulses of his own heart. Lightning pursues his trajectory through the grid. The crystal-spotlights start strobing in technicolour. It makes for a spectacular display and the crowd grows more feral with the applause and cheering.

Personally, Baze thinks that some of them would just _love_ to see him slip, see what happens, never seen a man fry on electricity before.

He makes a grab for the handhold and his aim is true. Then he undoes the hasp of the swing, calculates, concentrates - and swings across the grid, spinning, eeling, until he gets to the next handhold.

Then he finishes his whole circuit, spends all his moves. It’s banal like that.

He starts to descend, when a tremendous crack comes from below.

Ringmaster has held up his hand for silence from the crowd. Baze stops and stares. Now what?

“You have all seen the magnificent Blaze! Now for the next part of his act…”

The _what_ part of _what_ act? No, no, fuck this shit, his act is over. What is Chirrut up to?

“..I, your humble Ringmaster and host for tonight, will now ascend to the platform and enter the grid…”

“You will _not_!” Baze thunders from where he’s standing. But nobody hears him.

“...and I will leap off, without a safety harness or a protective suit…”

“And fall to your death! And then I’ll have to extract your sizzling, charred meat off the rails.”

“..and our one and only High Voltage Acrobat, Blaze Malbus, will catch me…”

“What if I don’t?” Baze shouts, only to be ignored.

“...or maybe he won’t…”

The crowd howls louder than ever. It sounds like they’re baying for blood. Wishing the excitement of mishap upon the performers.

“...and if he doesn’t catch me, then well, let me thank you all for being here with us. You’ve been an exceptional crowd and I am truly honoured to have been your host for tonight.”

With that, Ringmaster sheds off that six-foot bridal train of his robes, and his scarlet overcoat and top hat, wearing only a shirt and red harem pants. He scales the ladder easily to the platform opposite Baze, on the other side of the grid.

He smiles at Baze. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Chirrut, this isn’t in the script.”

“Well, this is an unscripted performance.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“We are already in the middle of the performance, whether you like it or not. Besides, what have you got to fear? You’re going to catch me, aren’t you?”

“You,” growls Baze, “have far too much faith in me.”

Chirrut spreads his arms, tilts his blind gaze to the ceiling. “And _you_ need to have some faith in me. You need to have some faith in the fact that I have faith in the fact that you are going to catch me, no matter what.”

“I think if your brains get fried on the grid, it’s not going to affect your twisted sense of logic.”

Chirrut laughs. Then he straightens all the mirth out of his face and looks directly at Baze. When he speaks, there is iron in his syllables. “ _Catch me_.”

Ringmaster steps off the platform. He hurtles downward, straight as a calm arrow, electricity fizzing in his wake, but never seeming to touch him.

Baze forgets to calculate. He leaps off without thinking, seizes the swing and arcs downward, a hand outstretched, sweeping through the charged air, to lock around Chirrut’s elbow. He hears Chirrut gasp as Baze nearly wrenches his arm loose of his socket, and then twists them safely around to a lower platform.

The audience nearly erupts.

Later, once the show is over, and Baze goes to Chirrut’s quarters.

“Right,” says Baze. “I quit. I’m leaving.”

“Think before you do anything,” Chirrut cautions.

“Says the Ringmaster who jumped off the platform straight into waiting death. _Why_ would you do something so stupid as that? Don’t you know the risks?”

Chirrut is carefully storing away his ringmaster jewelry and overcoat. “Don’t you feel different?”

“Feel what?” Baze growls.

“All this time. All these years you’ve been working here. You’ve been here far longer than I have. I know your discontent. Boredom. You’re bored with the whole act. Everything is just one shiny routine to you. So why not change things up a little? Spontaneity is the salt of life, they say.”

Baze takes a deep breath. “Just because I’m bored or discontented doesn’t mean I want you to risk _any_ part of yourself for me. I can’t - I don’t know what I’d do if - if -”

He trails off.

Chirrut doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “I’m sorry.”

Baze is incredulous. “Did you just - say you’re sorry? That’s a first.”

“I’m sorry to have caused you much distress.” Chirrut looks thoughtful. “Though all that distress is unnecessary, if only you’d believed in the both of us a bit more.”

“I knew that apology wasn’t going to last long.”

Chirrut puts his arms around him from behind, kneads the muscles of his shoulder. “Please don’t go, Baze Malbus.”

“Say that again,” says Baze roughly.

“Please.” Chirrut unbuttons Baze’s shirt.

“Again.”

“Please. Stay.” Chirrut’s mouth presses kisses on the nape of his neck, stutters a line along his bare shoulders. "With me."

“I’ll think about it,” says Baze. Then he turns to face Chirrut and kisses him, a deep bruise of a kiss.  


 

***

 

Later, Baze sits up in Chirrut’s bed. Chirrut is asleep, his body flushed and bare, his sleep unbroken and rhythmic.

Baze thinks of another show he’ll have to do the next night. And the night after that. And after.

He thinks of anchoring himself to some planet, preferably one with an ocean (that Earth place sounds so good in all the ads), where he can learn how to surf. How to fish. How to look at the stars and all the universe from a fixed point, instead of constantly swinging through space in some big flamboyant circus starship.

But then again, he’s already got his fixed point, his anchor.

He gets up from bed and gets himself a glass of water. But he stays.  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this is not what i wanted to write hahaha.  
> I was actually aiming for more crack but my crack muse failed me, boo. 
> 
> I had fun with this though.
> 
> thank you for reading! you can find me on tumblr @anagrammaddict but i'm usually very quiet & reserved, though i respond to things. ^.^


End file.
